


Clustering Together and Drifting Apart

by catnipquills



Category: Sense8 (TV)
Genre: Background Thoughts, Character studies, Childhood, Cluster Family - Freeform, Drabbles, One-Shots, Writing practise
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-30
Updated: 2015-07-25
Packaged: 2018-04-06 23:32:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 7,272
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4240854
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/catnipquills/pseuds/catnipquills
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The very early part of his childhood is a maze of high walls with barbed wire on top of it. He knows the bite of metal on his skin before he can name the birds that perch on the windowsill outside.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Wolfgang Bogdanow; The wolf** _(Part 1 of 8)_

 

   The very early part of his childhood is a maze of high walls with barbed wire on top of it. He knows the bite of metal on his skin before he can name the birds that perch on the windowsill outside. _(They’re common blackbirds.)_

   In a very cruel part of his mind, he imagines them getting caught in the wire. Maybe tearing bits and pieces of their wings off. Wolfgang has never had wings. However, it didn’t matter much anyway when those walls could not be overflown.

 

   Wolfgang learns to love the water more than the air or the dirty earth beneath his feet. It’s impossible to escape from this place through any water route because Berlin is too far away from the sea; but under water a mind learns to detach itself from the body and follow some sweet siren’s song into the depth. Once, Wolfgang almost drowns because the dull music of freedom drums wetly against his skin. Then Felix taps his arm and he drifts back to the dirty edge of the public swimming pool.

Sometimes he dreams of jumping into the Spree and ending up in the North Sea. The thought, no matter how absurd, is entertaining for a while and then his father almost breaks Wolfgang’s arm. He learns to keep his hopes no matter how childish and impossible low to the ground and close to his heart then. _(To snuff them out entirely if need be.)_

 

   Luxury is no stranger to Wolfgang. He sees it in his family and is always painfully aware that he will stay an arm’s length away from it at any time. _(Not that he doesn’t have what he needs. Not that he would want their money anyway.)_ But all this money is bloody in a way that he knows will never wash of his skin again.

   When he doesn’t know any better, he is a little jealous anyway. But he was a child, he was allowed stupid little feelings. Then his father deals him bruises so prominent on his skin, he has to wear long sleeves for half a month. He learns to be satisfied with the bones of his body being intact (most of the time).

 

 

   He can barely remember the wall in their city crumbling down, but he remembers the rush of euphoria that came with it. They move to the former West on a sudden decision. _(Not that it’s much of a difference._ Berlin _is_ Berlin _is_ **Berlin** _.)_

   Wolfgang doesn’t have enough friends at school to mind losing them. He doesn’t care enough to mind the bullying either, but he finds that between those boys and his father, he might have a hard time living to adulthood without any crippled limbs where the bones grew back together in the wrong positions. It’s like being caught between two walls again, slowly closing in on you. Like in one of those movies Felix liked so much. The hero does escape every time. Shame Wolfgang is not a hero. It would make things so _easy._

 

   Felix is not blood, but he is everything Wolfgang thinks blood probably should be. _(Not that he knows any better when they meet. He hadn’t had a friend, no, a_ brother _before.)_

   In any case, Wolfgang is a firm believer in the saying “blood is thicker than water”. Only, he read once about the actual meaning behind it, how the idiom is contorted in its meaning into the exact opposite and the sentiment originally was “the blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb”. Ties that were formed by choice had much more meaning than any accidental family bonds.

   He might know little with his half-grown body, his mind forced adult a bit sooner _(a bit more broken in than the rest)_ , but he understands loyalty. It’s his greatest treasure.

 

   When he understands that, he also understands that the other wall  closing in on him had to go. _(For loyalties sake. Loyalty to himself.)_ Wolfgang is young, but hardened and in the end its pure survival instinct that makes him a murderer in the first place. But that’s only half-bad. There’s worse things than killing or dying anyway.

   His uncle takes him in then. Wolfgang has little want for anything, but he dares not have extravagant tastes or wishes with his cousin looming in the doorways. Because now he is closer to all that bloody coins than ever before. _(But he won’t be tripped. He won’t be bullied. Not again. He refuses the victim role.)_

 

   Wolfgang grows to be exactly into the thing that his cousin mockingly calls him as a nickname: _Wolfie._ Little wolf. He braves the woods alone. _(Except for Felix. But he is the exception from them all. He’s the only reason that Wolfgang doesn’t vanish into the woods completly.)_

   Those are the walls he builds around himself. Wolfgang builds them solidly and learns to keep them close to his heart. He learns when to howl and when to keep quiet. He learns to listen to the wind that was never freedom to him and to the quiet of the night that meant opportunity for something, anything. Wolfgang becomes the image of the lone wolf. Except wolves need a pack and he his desperate for that pack more often than not.

 

   The cluster falls into place and that wish is fulfilled. Only he does not believe the beast that he has become could ever adapt into a community now. It’s in his blood after all and how can he erase who he is born to be? Wolfgang knows monsters and he knows the one in **himself**.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Still working on the other character studies... some bits won't come to me as easily as I thought. (I feel the need to research some more for this). So while I'm trying to figure things out... Have these little snippets.

_**Prompt: Why won’t you come back home?** (Wolfgang and the cluster) _

   “Why won’t you come home?” it’s Kala’s voice, but it’s the others too. It’s Nomi and Will and Riley. Capheus and Sun and Lito. The pull of the combined rumbling of sound is almost too strong to ignore. There is so much promise in the vibration of the tone alone, that Wolfgang thinks of music briefly. The kind that speaks of safety, of comfort and of love. (He wants to deny them, wants to ask bitterly wherever that "home" should be? But he knows already. Can't bring himself to sneer at them.)

   In his mind, their call is soothing like water all around his body, making him float. The aches in his body, the bruised knuckles and the patches of ruined skin are fading into the background minutely. The painful pulse just behind his eyes seems duller somehow. (He’s had that headache for days.) It’s not intruding either. They don’t try to pry his location from out of his thoughts, neither what happened the weeks between… his uncle’s death and this old motel room. It’s almost like they are hovering just around the edges of his mind, ready to take whatever information he is willing to yield. (There is no force in their approach, such gentle persuasion that some part of Wolfgang signs peacefully.)

   Instead of taking anything at all, they give first. It’s the comfort of their presence around him alone that seems a gift, but there is more. Almost as if they sit around him and tell him about their days, they are pushing images towards him. Wolfgang flops back on the bed, his feet still grounded at the foot end of the frame. He listens. Nomi tells him about leaving her home, too. There is Amanita – he knows her name without asking for it – constantly at her side. (She tells him: _You’re not alone either. You need not be._ ) Lito echoes those words easily, reaching out to Wolfgang – not taking, but offering – in an attempt to re-establish the connection that they had just spun. He is not moving yet, but might soon. They all seem to consider relocating. There is still some details to figure out, some questions to answer. So instead Lito shows him a breakfast between three people that flows easily and is illuminated by soft warm glow.

   There is Sun who you’d think doesn’t have to tell much about her life anyway, because prison seems to limit you routine to only so many variations. But she tells him about paintings instead, about another woman with some kindness in her eyes. Wolfgang finds himself almost fond of her, or maybe that’s Sun’s emotion. Capheus hardly knows him at all, but he is most vibrant in his storytelling, sweet almost dancing with a beloved mother in a kitchen that smells of good warm food.

   Then there is Riley and she speaks for Will too, can’t show him much because of the whole situation with Whispers. So instead she hums a tune that is oddly comforting too, even if he can’t understand the words. She’s the one making the other’s voices so very melodic in his head, Wolfgang realizes belatedly. She’s doing a beautiful thing. (He thinks, he can feel Riley smile at that.)

   _Kala._ Kala is- and Wolfgang has to force himself away. Her words would sway him, would break his resolve with a single word. Her silence is so warm already, Wolfgang fears he couldn’t bear anything that she would tell him without opening up to her immediately. He signs deeply. Something like the edges of broken glass jarring together. “I can’t”, he tells them, barely trying to steady his voice and he forcefully pulls away.

 

_**Prompt: Rain** (Kala and Wolfgang) _

   It always rains in Germany, Kala thinks when she looks at the horizon behind Wolfgang. The skyline is beautiful none the less, Berlin vibrant in her eyes already. (Kala has the suspicion her love for that city has nothing to do with the buildings framing the horizon at all.) He smiles faintly at her. “The weather is not that bad”, he murmurs, half-smiling. “Besides. You only think that because the sun always shines in India.” It baffles her, how Wolfgang manages to weave his way into her heart so quickly. (Maybe because they already share a mind.)

   Kala shakes her head, but she is smiling too. “The weather is not that good.” She is thinking of the monsoon season, wondering if the atmosphere in her memory is slipping over into Wolfgang’s head as well. He’s not entirely wrong though. Because when they visit each other, it is always like this: wet coffee shops in Berlin, sunny Indian rooftops, rainy nights on German streets, and warm mornings in Mumbai. Kala prefers the sun.

   When all the world seems to almost come crashing down around her and the seven other parts of her soul, Kala sits on her windowsill and watches the pouring rain. She reaches her hands out, catching the water in her upturned palms, fearing it is a bad omen maybe. Wolfgang likes water, Kala knows, so maybe it’s not that bad a thing.

 

 _**Prompt: Cruel Words** _ _(Nomi and the Cluster)_

   “You’re a disgrace, Michael”, her mother tells her while standing in the entryway of her flat. Of their flat. How did she every find this place? Nomi doesn’t hear the words at first, she’s starteled by her mother’s appearance of all things. Because after the last few days and weeks and months, she seemed further away than ever before.

   “Do you hear me? You should come home, stop this nonsense! Whatever you think you are doing, this is wrong. This is a sin. It’s disgraceful.” This time the words come through, there not as painful as in the beginning anymore. They were like shards of glass on her skin once, tearing gaping wholes. Now they are scratching just the surface. Nomi is never in tears about this anymore. She stands tall. But it still hurts, oh it always hurts. (How could it not?) But somehow she doesn’t even react, stands there and just stares.

 

   “Fuck her”, says Will suddenly at her side, standing close. His presence vibrates warmly in the small of her back, like a cushion steadying her till the furthest corner of the world. “You should not even listen to her”, Capheus tries to comfort with a hand on her shoulder. There is more warmth blossoming in her fingertips, her toes.

   “She’s wrong”, adds Kala. “So wrong.” And it spreads easily, does not force it’s way anywhere but lingers over any uncertainties, washes them clean, moves on. It’s like they are plucking the shards from her skin.

   “Do you want us to throw her out?” asks Lito. The wounds are less potent under their hands, their warmth alone silencing the dominant pain. Wolfgang and Sun don’t say anything, but she can feel them standing right behind her, ready to punch her mother in the face.

   “Forget her. We’re all with you”, adds Riley suddenly holding her hand and completing their circle. Her family is all around her, Nomi realizes, and whoever this woman is that stands in front of her, she is nothing.

  “How dare you”, her voice is like low thunder. Amanita is behind her mother suddenly and she whirls around. “How dare you come here. Get out.” And it’s like a whip, like a punch, or maybe one of other sensates has pushed her out of the flat, but her mother is stumbling away without resistance. Amantia has her effulged in her arms another second later. Nomi breathes, didn’t even realize she stopped.

The sensates linger around them. Nomi feels soft and warm and loved. It doesn't hurt so bad anymore.

 

_**Prompt: The dirt under our feet.** (Capheus and Wolfgang) _

   If you put all the sensates on a scale (and they had done this a lot the last few days, measuring abilities and categorizing traits) in most of them, there is Capheus on the one end and Wolfgang on the other.

   The first time something sweeps through the connection between them, it’s the dirt under Capheus feet. Afterwards, Wolfgang is thinks maybe he was aware of that because this might have been the closest Capheus had come to resemble him. Only Wolfgang would have taken the deal with less hesitation maybe, with less ambition or reason or-

   “That’s not true”, Capheus tells him from across the room. Suddenly, they are in a Berlin alley together, or is it Nairobi? This is still confusing as hell.

   “And you would know that how?” Wolfgang knows his tone is dangerous, doesn’t care. Capheus has all the calm in the world. It’s unnerving.

   “I’m inside your head like you are in mine. You’re another me. You’re not that monster you claim to be. I would know.” Some part of Wolfgang wants to yell at the other, but no part wishes him pain. He isn’t surprised to find that he cares about that stupid little light. What surprises him is the fact that Capheus words are fierce in a way he didn’t expect in the other. Maybe it’s not true, Wolfgang admits quietly in his head, maybe he would have turned the deal down. It seems a dangerous thing to do, taking up such an offer, and he is not suicidal, no matter what some of his actions might lead other people to belief. He remembers the broken form of Felix, bleeding on the ground. Maybe Capheus and he weren’t so different.

   The other smiled briefly. Of course, Wolfgang thought, he had heard every word.

 


	3. Chapter 3

**Prompt: _Cruel Names_** _(Nomi and Wolfgang)_

   There is that moment that is almost funny, when the last bits of what happened the first few months between all of them slide into place in every sentinels head. Like for example, Wolfgang knows about Nomi’s time at the hospital about them nearly losing her before finding her, but it’s like reading through the pages of a book and sometimes you need to re-read passages until all the details filter in. He snorts suddenly at something and Nomi isn’t sure what to make of it – until there is an emotion that filters in with his next look at her. It’s almost protectiveness.

   “His name suits him”, he says suddenly and makes a face at that likes the thought is cruelly ironic. He’s still leaning against the kitchen counter and seemingly staring into place. “Metzger, I mean.” And for a moment she doesn’t get it, but then the knowledge of Wolfgang’s mother tongue in his own mind becomes Nomi’s and she knows there is a bitter expression on her face. “It means butcher, doesn’t it?” Wolfgang nods. Another beat and he speaks again. “He got what he deserved.”

   Nomi nods too after a moment. The memory is shaking her to the bones still, it’s an all-consuming feeling, threatening to drag her under- “Nothing like that will ever happen again to you”, Wolfgang interrupts her thoughts, standing closer suddenly. She looks at him and is quietly grateful that he is part of that cluster too. “We’ll make sure of it.”

 

 

 **Prompt:** _**Blood and Water** (Wolfgang and Felix)_

   There is nothing going on. It’s not that the streets are quiet in the Berlin twilight, but it seems like a good moment to move positions. As good as any other, Wolfgang thinks and bitterly adds: if they wanted too, they would have killed me by now. Maybe the Bogdanows just didn’t matter enough. His mind supplies a feeling of cruel satisfaction that blankets over his mood dark and foggy. Ash to ash, dust to dust. It was a risk staying in Berlin. A risk that became bigger with every passing day, every passing hour.

   He would have left the city a while ago, but there is still Felix and he can’t quite leave as long as his friend is lying comatose in some bought hospital bed. (He’s never sure just how secure the whole deal is. People who are bribable seem never quite trustworthy to him.) He feels tied to the feet of that bedframe by tiny red threats that are memories over memories, chiming quietly inthe back of his mind like bloody bells. It’s a laugh shared between friends that were completely out of breath, hiding behind some dumpsters, a hug and screaming at the top of their lungs, it’s silent company while waiting for his the throbbing in his ribs to pass.

   He can’t just leave, he physically can’t. So Wolfgang spends most of his days at the hospital, sometimes staying past visiting times. But this evening he can’t quite stop his stomach growling, his feet aching from sitting still for too long. There is many people on the streets, making him feel secure enough to wander the streets a bit longer (maybe even throw someone of his trail, just in case he is being followed?).

 

   Berlin is a busy city, buzzing with energy day and night. It’s electrifying on most days. Wolfgang finds that tonight he only yearns for some sleep. He rounds another corner into a side street, almost empty but not suspiciously so. (Only it is, he will later realize.) Possibly, that’s why Wolfgang has no time to react at all, when he feels the push of another body in his back, making him fall forward quite unceremonially. A second later he hears the crack of a bullet against stone (and his mind goes: muffler? A fucking muffler!?) and he’s on his feet, running.

   Wolfgang is not even sure where he is going or if he is being followed, he’s unarmed, he doesn’t dare turn around, hopes he won’t be followed- a hand grabs him, pulls him into the driveway of some old house, on into the inner courtyard and he belatedly wants to pull away, but his mind supplies what his subconsciously already tells him: _Will._

When they stop he realizes for the first time that he’s out of breath. And he wants to listen for any pursuer, but his own heartbeat is impossibly loud in his own ears for a moment. “He’s gone”, Will tells him steadily, but Wolfgang can feel his own rush echoing in the other. Something like concern swims atop their connection. Belatedly, he wants to question how he is here and what about Whispers and- Will shakes his head. _No time right now._

 

   “You need to leave Berlin.”

   “I can’t just-“, he starts to protest. Wolfgang shakes his head, tells him in so many words that it’s impossible, that maybe he should die anyway. That he’s holding on to the one bit that divides him from the monsters of his past, but he can feel it already: he barely makes sense in his tumbling words. He wins no ground.

   “You’re no use to Felix dead”, Will tells him almost angrily, interrupting the litany of words. Wolfgang feels out of breath.

   “You’re no use to any of us dead.” He shakes his head at his own words. “We worry about you, Wolfgang. You need to get out now.”

   That night he leaves Berlin and hopes that somehow, anyhow Felix will be save. (Every heartbeat rattles in his chest in fear for his brother. But he leaves anyway, because they are everything the other have and when Will tells him “We need to stop Whispers from finding our family”, Wolfgang finds something like determination in his very bones.)

 

 

**Prompt: _Roots_**

Wolfgang isn’t even trying particularly hard to hide what he had done from his uncle. He knew that his uncle knew and that was it. However, he played along with the interrogation, the intimidation tactic. Even if it was altogether a lost effort on him.

That was fifty percent due to the fact that Wolfgang was shit a lying – and wasn’t that an ironic inconvenience? – and the other fifty were just a simple plain and unhealthy _Idon’tcare_ attitude. (And maybe, just maybe, the every drumming thought: I _’m not my father. I’m not my father._ Like a mantra, like he could make it true if he repeated it often enough in his head, only he could not. Never ever could he strip himself free of that _bastard_ , this bloody-)

“It was the same kind of safe that fucked your father”, his uncle tells him and a part of Wolfgang is grimly proud. I’m not him, never him. “It would be an irony of Shakespearian proportions If his son fucked his own life, cracking the safe his father failed to crack “I’m not as stupid as my father”, he tells him honestly. Wolfgang doesn’t care for the words, reminds himself to let his face stay neutral. (Huh, so you do care? A bitter part of his mind sneers, but he shuts it up. _I’m not my father, I’m not my father._ )

“You’re father made mistakes, everyone does”, his uncle calls after him and Wolfgang can just barely refrain from grinding his teeth loud enough to be audible in the silence of the room. Yes, Wolfgang thinks, everyone makes mistakes. But there is this fine line between an occasional fit, the odd slap in the face and broken bones, a bloody nose and a sore throat. “You should always remember who you are.” I will, he thought in bitter determination, and I hope so will you. _I’m not my father. I’m not my father._

(But I am. Oh, I am.)

 

 

 **Prompt: _Van Damme and Conan_** _(Capheus and Wolfgang)_

  
“I think you would get along well with Felix”, says a voice next to him that Capheus remembers far gruffer from the conversations in his head. Funnily enough, it doesn’t make him jump up from his spot on the old couch but rather makes him relax back into it. (Like a part of him has come back home. It’s an odd feeling, but not the least bit unwelcome.)

Capheus doesn’t have to ask who Felix is or why Wolfgang thinks this is true with Van Damme moving over the screen right in front of him. The flickering pictures reflect in Wolfgang’s steady gaze when Capheus turns to look at him standing very still just out of reach. (Like he fears that he might not be welcome here. He _is_.) Something like nostalgia clouding them over for the tiniest moment until the clear again. The eyes of a fighter, Capheus thinks, like Sun’s. He smiles at the other.

“I’m looking forward to meet him some time,” Capheus tells Wolfgang sincerely. No question about it happening, no question about Felix waking up, no question about the reality behind that vision. Capheus feels Wolfgang release a breath, the emotion behind it being gratefulness. “Come. Sit with me.” –and Wolfgang does.

 

 

 **Prompt: _Angel_** _(Kalagang)_

  
Kala has her own guardian angel. Only the very same cringes whenever she calls him that in her head. _What would you have me call you?_ She challenges him one time. _An avenging demon? I know you’re not that._ The figure shrugs and is gone after a second. Kala can tell that he thinks himself that demon, if not the devil himself. But with all that darkness clinging so tightly to his heart, there must be something underneath which the shadows tried to feast on. Light.

Her angel is hovering around the edges of her life. He steadies her step, gentles her frowns and guards her through the fearful nights. It’s comforting until it isn’t. It becomes unnerving. (Far quicker than Kala cares to admit, because while she _loves_ his bodiless presence she wished he would just show himself.)

“Demon”, she calls out to him, sitting on the floor of her room. It had been two months then and Kala was done.  “You’ll have to come on out or to go away.”  
“And why is that”, asks a blonde suddenly standing in front of her, mere three or four steps away. Kala looks up at him and sees the sharp angles, the ice in his eyes, the recklessness in the way he holds himself. He holds such attraction to her, it was uncanny.

“Because I won’t have it”, she tells him simply. The other smiles almost mockingly. (Only there is a gentleness in his eyes that won’t quite suit his own label “demonic”. He was soft around the cold edges when Kala allowed herself to look closer.)

“And that is supposed to make me stop?”

“Maybe” Kala says, mirroring his smile and she is up and perching on the edge of her bed. She leans forward slightly, eyes never leaving his. Two could play this game and Kala was certain that he wouldn’t mind losing this round. “Sweet demon, would you come here?” and she sees him shiver, something of his expression stripped bare so suddenly. He starts to shake his head, but she adds “Sit at my feet?”

His eyes widen, as if that request is preposterous of Kala. She wants to change her wording, but a moment later his faces is wiped of the expression and he moves. Oh so fluently, the blonde is on his knees in front of her, his breathing so irregular. Kala runs his fingers through his hair, can feel him melt. “There you go”, she whispers almost to herself. “My angel.”

 

 

**Prompt: _Stress_** _(Wolfgang and Riley)_

  
His fingers are tapping idly on the ground catching the gravel for a second in tiny dents of skin with too much pressure before releasing them again. A part of Riley thinks that Wolfgang is probably humming in his mind. But then again: this is Wolfgang. He probably isn’t. 

But a second after she’s dismissed the thought the soft low sound of his voice drags over the walls over the Berlin alley. One of his knees is resting on the ground the jeans collecting dirt from a motionless touch alone. Wolfgang is holding himself utterly still. His eyes are closed and his facial muscles tense and intense in an attempt to relax.

His mind is quite the opposite of his outer appearance, Riley knows. His thoughts are a chaotic thunderstorm flashing and rumbling at all the wrong moments. She dares not intrude and try decipher them. Wolfgang would probably not appreciate any attempt to spy. 

But Riley isn’t here because of her own curiosity. She’s here because she heard the soft music in their cluster, one of the sensates tapping rhythms. She would never have guessed that it was Wolfgang. 

For a long time, Riley is surprised whenever he displays any sort of affinity to music, but after a while she is certain: Wolfgang has a passion for music. It’s not that he has an extensive knowledge, it’s just that he cherishes the music voices can create. He doesn’t display it or even try to develop that part of him, but Riley connects with him there. (And isn’t that the important part of the cluster?)

 

For Riley music was an escape. As the emotions of the other’s echoed within her bones, she thought that this was what she could teach them. (When Nomi first slipped into the grasp of the enemy, Riley had sung to her. Riley didn’t knowing then how all of this worked, or that she wasn’t just singing anymore to comfort herself. Now she hears the islandic words on Nomi’s lips sometimes. As a comfort soothing some part of her mind. Their mind.) 

With everything going on, Riley didn’t consider sharing this part of her with the rest of the cluster more consciously for a while. But eventually she decided that she should. Riley would start with Wolfgang, she thought. 

So Riley put on the blue headphones and urged him to slip into her skin for a little while. She felt Wolfgang relax after half a minute and stop tapping on some stony ground. Wolfgang trusted in the cluster even though he’d deny it if asked outright.


	4. Chapter 4

**(2 of 8) Riley Blue (née Gunnarsdóttir): _The Hidden Girl_**

Her childhood is all sweet music, the softness of her father’s voice and the rug underneath her fingertip. Riley lays for hours at a time right there at her father’s feet. And there was her father’s love. _His love, his love, his love._ She would draw all the time while listening to the sweet melodies.

There was her mother too, even if she was a more distant memory (the way that memories are if they are made early in life). Riley’s mother was a fighter’s nature, a protector of her loved ones. So she guarded her sweet girl from all harm, told her the stories about the people hidden in the dark corners and how Riley ought to be careful and reasonable. (Of course she hadn’t meant that Riley needed to hide what she was, her mother hadn’t known. If she had, Riley would have never been at that hospital, never needed another sensate to protect her secret before she even knew she had one.)

Her mother was one of the loveliest people that the world was ever going to know, Riley was sure. But for all her strength, she couldn’t win every battle. Riley remembered the shattering guilt that had to do with a curse. But she also remembered not believing the words, thinking still that fate did only sometimes strike unfairly. Her father gathered her in her arms and together they shared warmth in the cold that crept in with the winter. 

In some ways, her whole world was a bit like one of those dusty old fairy tales. Her father as the kind king, her mother the lovely queen (taken too soon like most queens are) and Riley their darling princess. Riley even had her prince on his white horse, the sweetness of his kisses. It was a fairy tale (and the few edges only made it more believable in this reality.) 

 

It was almost comical how quickly her whole world had come crashing down. But in truth it was really just sad. Afterwards she clamps down on her emotions, forces them to become dust and ashes (just like Magnús and Lúna), but she remembers very clearly the first moment when her brain was hit with the realisation: _I’m still alive._

(She was screaming: It’s not fair. No. Why are they dead and I’m still here!) Riley remembered thinking that it was a formality really, the fact that she was alive. Because everything worth living for was gone. Riley remembered her mother then, thought of the cruse. Of how it was all her fault.

The only thing that keep Riley breathing (even if it was all shards in her lungs) was her father sitting by her bedside, softly singing to her, even in the time when she wouldn’t speak for weeks. She left anyway or maybe because of her father. Riley couldn’t let him die too. 

It was all a terrible thing, the way her story turned out to be. (And she has to detach herself, to think about it like a stranger’s life being broken apart and not her own. Otherwise she mind just cluster apart into so many tiny bits that he would be hard every piecing her back together correctly.) 

Maybe, the worst part was that Riley felt like she left her little daughter, but that at the very same time was terrified of the only thing that might join them again. _Death._ Because even if she wasn’t sure she wanted this live anymore, Riley couldn’t quite love the idea of death. 

 

It seemed like a dream now. Riley’s old life was gone, all of her childhood years. She was not that girl anymore. She was _blue_. Like her name. (Magnús’s name.) Her friends over in London aren’t the kind she should be glad to have. Riley is aware of the fact, but it’s not like she’s a hundred percent aware of her surroundings at any point of time anyway. So that’s probably okay.

Riley isn’t sure that she wants to live all the time. But the sun comes up every morning and it hurts like hell sometimes, but there is something faintly glimmering on the horizon and she tells herself if she can just reach that, she’ll be fine. She’ll come to be just fine. 

 

In a way, she became one of them. The _huldufólk_. The elves hidden just in the corner of your eyes and every time you think you see something, they move before you can even turn your head. But Riley wasn’t really one of them, she was hidden only in the simplest sense of the word: hidden from her past, hidden from the pain, just barely out of reach of all those memories. 

Her sweet Lúna was one of the faeries, maybe. Children always seem to have a close connection to these otherworldly creatures in the stories. She remembers some friends from Ireland, their stories of faeries and wishes that those parts of the tales that are cheerful are true. Her sweet Lúna a faery in the woods, forever laughing and cheering at the sweet warmth of their magic, never cold. Never ever cold again. (But she’s more bound to the tales of her own roots, the tales that the vast majority of the Irish tell too. Cruel and Dark.) 

Sometimes, Riley thought she could hear the hidden people. They would sing some tender, gloomy melody. But they almost never sung to her in the silence. Rather in the underlying tone of the music, the drum in the last corner of the melody, barely audible while the speakers where blearing loudly, everybody screaming on top of their lungs. (There is only so far she can run. Riley would always see the shadows of her past in the corner of her eye. Gone in the moment she turned towards it, but always there whenever she denied it most.) 

In the end, Riley slips into the musical spheres because that’s where she imagines her daughter and husband. (Because she wants to be whole again someday, wants to forgive herself but she doesn’t want to forget.) Riley wishes happiness for them a hundred times a day. Wherever they are now, she hopes they are safe and warm. Till one day maybe they’d meet again. 

 

At first, she thinks it’s too many drugs. But the sensate are much realer than any hallucination she could make up. Riley feels them so clearly, it’s like waking up from the dream she’d let herself fall into. (Maybe this meant she could move on?) But she can’t make up her mind just yet: Is it possible that reality is a happy dream or has she slipped into a nightmare?    


	5. Chapter 5

**Prompt: _Hugs_** _(Wolfgang)_

  
His family’s hugs are fake. Well, those few that he actually receives. The Bogdanow family isn’t really prone to physical contact. Except for those touches that cause violently yellow-green-blue-dark-purple bruises on his body, those that leave his shuddering and heaving up what little food he gets down at his short visits home.

When he darts into the flat of his father, he turns the key with so much care, is careful not to make any noise at all. He stands on the doorstep, right on the crack between pavement and linoleum – step on a crack break your _father’s_ back – and listens for sounds. Whenever Wolfgang has the luxury of leaving (when Felix slips him his lunch, when Wolfgang steals enough money to buy food for a whole week for both of them and stashes it at Felix’s) he does so at the slightest noise. Especially in the beginning, he is not that lucky a lot.

So, Wolfgang hushes in and grabs something and leaves again. (But it doesn’t always end like this. His father isn’t a kind man, not sober but especially not drunk.) He can’t remember ever hugging his father – actually the thought alone leaves him ice-cold to his bones.

 

When his uncle hugs him at the funeral (another cruel man dead, Wolfgang feels little pity), he feels his chest constricting briefly. You hypocrite, he thinks and counts the second until he is released. It’s a mockery of comfort. In his head, he considers whether his uncle had hugged him ever before and comes up blank. That is probably due to the fact that Wolfgang tends to repress any memories concerning his family.

There is Felix. Felix who hugs him tight, and screams at the top of his lungs and Wolfgang’s ears are ringing, but he wouldn’t let go for the world. And he laughs. Felix is more family than anybody Wolfgang has blood relations to. His hugs are euphoria and happiness, always in the spurt of the moment.

Once, Wolfgang sits across Felix at his place and there is random chatter, more silence really. Nothing is happening and maybe that’s the reason why Wolfgang closes his eyes for a second and the next breath he takes makes his whole body shutter. In a moment, Felix is across the room and has his arms around him. The reflex would dictate Wolfgang to push him away but for half a minute the awkward hug (not because of Felix, but because of how they half-sit half-stand) helps him drag the pieces of himself back together again.

 

The sensates are a completely new addition to his life and Wolfgang isn’t sure immediately how close he wants them. Wolfgang doesn’t mind people touching him all that much, doesn’t mind closeness. He only minds the fake ones, the ones that manipulate.

One time Lito hugs him, a spurt of the moment, and for a second Wolfgang wants to draw back. (He doesn’t owe anybody closeness anymore. Not with Felix in a coma, with his brother hurt so badly-) But the touch is warm and honest and maybe, just maybe this is what family should be like. Wolfgang thinks, that maybe he can stop checking for traps with them. They seem genuine.

 

***

**Prompt: _Eight_**

 

**One.**

His dad drinks too much, but it hadn’t always been like that. His childhood was one constant string of rebellious acts. It’s what boys do. He’d done his fair share of mischief in an attempt to escape the leash he’d felt on his body.

Later, he becomes the opposite. A keeper of the law. He doesn’t allow any wrongs, not even from himself. Until his head becomes a clustered place. He is bound to cut some slack for _himself_ isn’t he? (And he’s far more kind with the other parts of his mind than the sliver of space that is entirely his own.)

**Two.**

He tries not the be the boy who cried wolf (-he knows one of the wolves so intimately now that he respects their power more than ever. The growling noise at the back of his mind leaves no room for mistakes). But lying comes easy. That’s why he has to counter the untruths with explicit truths. Hernando is true.

Their love is too. It’s like a vibrating thing in the back of his mind and it steers him true, a straight line connecting another seven halves. He has Daniela too. Her and Hernando. And more than a handful full of new parts of himself. Not all of them honest. But he finds that honesty is not exactly the same as truth.

**Three.**

Sometimes, he thinks it's unfair that someone as _good_ as his mother has to suffer so much. 

Other times, he breathes the sun. His laughter is always bright, always honest, because: there is so much _good_ in the world. (And he wants to believe it balances out the bad.)

**Four.**

She is the balance. A never ending calm.

Her mother made her heart kind. (She knew love. Knew the purest, the fullest form of love.)

Her brother on the other had made her aware of what it meant to be a coward. Every time another business partner dismisses her, she clenches her fist more tightly. She wonders if one day she will explode. _(Hey sis, get us a cup of coffee.)_

Her mother also told her to take care of her brother. Only… none of that makes sense does it? For where there is calm there is anger. She’s not all that suited as a caretaker. This unbelievable anger is in her fingertips, in her knuckles – it fills up her whole fist.

**Five.**

She sees through the goddess eyes.

But why would she celebrate the cowardly attack on someone who believed in different things? Believes are after all nothing but the language we chose to explain the miracles around us.

She skips back and forth between two. Then there is the sensates. Suddenly, it’s no longer just two languages that she tethers between.  

**Six.**

Her parents are about as supportive as a pair of stones. No wait, stones would be better because they wouldn’t judge you and try to change you.

“Something is wrong with you. Why can’t you be like all the other boys?”

Her sister skirts the line between her side and her parents’. She accepts, but she barley speaks out. (She wonders if that is worse. Having an ally that is close but so unreliable that she can’t be pushed away but won’t act in her favour either.)

_(It’s not Michael.)_

However, having a whole cluster of supporters might be more than enough.

**Seven.**

He isn’t usually prone to social contacts. There is Felix, of course, always Felix. But how can he change something that is by now the thing that helps him hold onto his spine? _Fight for your right. You’re probably best of alone._

Funny, how easily these other people had weaselled in under the wire.

**Eight.**

There is dirt on her knees and bleach in her hair. Music is the thin line of sanity that she’s woven through what’s left of her will. (Until it’s not. It’s so easy to fall apart.)

Coming home had never been so sweet – and never been so bitter. Her dad is all love, her past all jarred edges.

She isn’t entirely certain where she’d be without the other seven.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> I might add to this eventually, but for the moment I don't see myself writing more of these. (Which doesn't mean I won't write any more Sense8-stuff.) But hey, you never know.


End file.
